Category: Non Vegetarian

For any non vegetarian in India, chicken curry is probably the most commonly eaten dish. It is the easiest protein available, is not as expensive as red meat, is super versatile and cooks quickly. What more do you need?

This curry is my go-to primarily because it has all the familiar flavours of a simple home-style chicken curry and comes together without fuss thanks to the pressure cooker. Easy peasy!

One of my go-to proteins is chicken. Super easy to cook, extremely versatile in terms of flavour and comes together pretty fast. Great for weekday dinners! I love experimenting with chicken and trying flavours from different cuisines. Not only does this give us variety for our meals, but also helps me learn and love many more styles of cooking. This recipe is adapted from some of Malayali food I’ve had over the years (aka food from Kerala or Mallu food :)). Mallu food is super delicious, peppery, punchy and downright awesome! I make it a point to try as many restaurants and recipes of this cuisine as I can. This pepper chicken is an attempt to bring some of that awesomeness into my kitchen.

One of my favourite things about travel is discovering new food! For me new food includes new ingredients, new recipes, new flavours, new ways of cooking and even new ways of using familiar ingredients. Food is probably one of the best ways to experience a city, don’t you think? It really helps you understand what the locals like, helps you learn about the history, helps you connect with the people and makes the experience so much more enriching…and delicious 🙂

My friend S and I were in Italy last year. We spent about 9 days exploring Florence, Rome and parts of Tuscany. Along with visiting many museums and churches, we also pretty much ate and drank our way through these places. Every meal was accompanied by some house wine 🙂 Italy gave me the opportunity to try so many kinds of food and so many ways to use ingredients that I left feeling immensely inspired. Along with all the delicious meat, one of my other favourites was pecorino! I’ve had pecorino before, but always in a mixture or a sauce and never just as is. What a cheese! Sharp, peppery and delicious! I brought some back and the husband and I kept nibbling on it everyday. So when my friend T went to Italy this year, I asked her to bring back wine (obviously) and some pecorino.

Apart from nibbling it everyday, I figured I must also cook with it, right? 🙂 I am a big fan of baked/grilled chicken and make some form of it every week (like this recipe). I’ve made crumbed chicken before and think it is super easy and delicious. I swapped out the regular cheese for pecorino, added some other fun herbs and voila! Pecorino crumbed chicken!

I recently invited some friends over for dinner and was thinking about what I could make for the main course. Given the spread of preferences, I figured chicken would be the easiest protein to go with. But what to do with the chicken?

I was making a lot of other things which would take time (chaat, dal makhni etc) so wanted something which would be easy and fuss free. I ended up tweaking my Dahi Chicken recipe to make it into a drier, more spicy dish. Result – AMAZE!

I might not be able to speak Bengali or know too much about Bengali culture (I try), but I sure as hell LOVE Bengali food. I have eaten a fair bit of it growing up, especially at my grandmom’s house. My aunts, to this day, feed me at least some Bengali food when I visit them. I make some Bengali food at home now and am constantly looking to add more to my repertoire.

Even though I have barely spent any time in Kolkata (where I was born), Bengali food to me is extremely synonymous to home. To comfort. To nostalgia. To deliciousness.

When I go to a Bengali restaurant, I am always keen to try new things and also to try my absolutely rubbish broken Bengali 🙂 I guess this is a way for me to connect to that part of my heritage.

One thing that screams Bengali food is Kasundi. Kasundi is this pungent, spicy, fermented mustard sauce that is integral to Bengali cuisine. It is used as a dip or as part of a curry and it just explodes in your mouth with each bite. It is potent, believe me! It is also extremely delicious! The only other remotely similar flavour bomb is wasabi, in my opinion.

This chicken dish uses Kasundi in the curry and is pretty damn tasty 🙂